8 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
tion and the treatment that it received, its tilth was never good. The 
• yield of beets ranged from eight to fifteen tons per acre. 
We had in this land the following conditions : First, the pres¬ 
ence of a large amount of the ordinary so-called alkali; second, a 
water-plane which varied, but which was always near the surface; 
third, the ground water was rich in the alkali salts, varying from 
two thousand to ten thousand parts per million; fourth, the physical 
condition of this soil was never such as one might designate as good. 
This was the worst piece of land at my disposal at the time it 
was chosen for the purposes of our experiments. The results were, 
in regard to yield, from eight to fifteen tons per acre as already 
stated, which compared favorably with yields obtained from better 
lands. The beets grown on this land were compared with others of 
the same varieties and supposedly from the same lot of seed grown 
on land free from all of these objections. In this way we eliminated 
the questions of climatic conditions, strains of seed, etc. The plots 
ran lengthwise of the piece of ground and were divided into three 
sections for the purposes of sampling the beets. The final samples 
for the first season were taken October 13 and gave as averages for 
the three sections, Ivleinwanzlebener 11.76, Vilmorin 10.94, Lion 
Brand 12.76, Imperial 13.65 percent sugar. Samples gathered from 
the farm plots on the same date gave: Kleinwanzlebener 12.32 and 
Vilmorin 13.02 percent sugar. In 1898 the beets grown on this 
bad ground gave, Kleinwanzlebener 15.2, Vilimorin 15.4, Lion 
Brand 14.82, Imperial 14.35, while the Kleinwanzlebener grown 
on one of the horticultural plots gave 15.7 and the Vilimorin 13.9 
percent sugar in the beet. In 1899 only two varieties were grown 
on the land in question, i. e., Kleinwanzlebener and Zehringen, these 
varieties showing the presence of 15.77 and 15.86 percent sugar in 
the beet. They were harvested 10 November. The coefficients of 
purity were 84.0 and 84.2 respectively. 
The conclusion at which we arrived, as the result of our ob¬ 
servations of four crops grown on this land, was that neither the al¬ 
kali per se nor the combined conditions obtaining in this land were 
sufficiently adverse to produce any decidedly prejudicial effect upon 
the composition of the beet. It may be stated that the supply of pot¬ 
ash in this soil, as indicated by the ordinary agricultural analysis, is 
very abundant, 1.18 percent average of twelve analyses, and that a 
determination of the total potash showed 2.295 percent. The 
amount of phosphoric acid present was moderate or low, ranging in 
the twelve analyses made from 0.054 to 0.138 with an average of 
0.095 percent. The nitrogen in the twelve samples referred to 
ranged very close to o. 10 percent, the average being 0.1020 percent. 
The nitrates in this soil and ground water were determined in a 
number of samples. The surface soil was found to be at least well 
